Series 4 - Episode 25How to Succeed .... At Murder

by Brian Clemens
Directed by Don Leaver

Episode Rating

Subject

0-5

Direction

3½ stars

Music

3 stars

Humour

3½ stars

Intros/tags

3½ stars

Villains

4 stars

Plot

4 stars

Emma

3½ stars

Sets/Props

3½ stars

Overall
(0-10)

7 stars

A bit work-a-day, but that's why these women started killing in the first place. The revelation of the mastermind can be seen coming a mile off, and it's a bit surprising that the liberated women of the story didn't see it for themselves.

Continuity and trivia

8:30 - There have already been eleven murders by the time Steed visits Rudge for the first time, so nine preceded the events of the episode.

15:10 - Diana Rigg walks into the door of Hooter's office when trying to get past Gladys.

16:25/16:54 - Hooter explains the guard on his nose by saying, while wearing it, "No unpleasant effluvia can assail my nostrils; you see, I smell a great deal". Mrs Peel somewhat nervously replies, "You do? Ah, I mean, you do".

23:09/23:43 - Steed calls "the Colonel" for more information on the case, we can assume this is Colonel Robertson, whom he calls in Honey for the Prince and mentions on the 'phone in The House That Jack Built. An earlier 'phone call at 11:52/12:10, informing them of Finlay's murder, is presumably from the Colonel as well.

29:57/30:55 - The rooftop shot of Mrs Peel following Mary Merryweather into the keep-fit class briefly shows us the cameraman's suede shoes...

30:27/31:27 - Recognise that sign? Almost the same sign is used in Quick-Quick Slow Death and How to Succeed... At Murder, most of the business names remaining the same (notably Gordon Jacksons Ltd.), just the key name changing.
Note also that one of them is in Mackiedockie Street, surely just around the corner from the shenanigans of Escape in Time, which took place in Mackiedockie Court. This sign also suggests that this episode happens before Quick-Quick Slow Death as the company would surely have been Barton & Co before Liz killed Mr Barton.

41:30 - Steed sprays the soda siphon at Liz to stop her shooting him - he misses completely but she ducks and runs anyway.

49:00 - same departure road as usual.

Running time: 49'49"

A note on the timecodes
Where I have listed two sets of timecodes, the first is from the 2009-11 Optimum Releasing/Studio Canal DVD sets, any other timecodes are from the A&E and Contender DVD sets from a decade beforehand.
The new releases have been remastered and their frame rate has been changed, resulting in a shorter running time. However, the picture quality has increased markedly. I assume this is because they used a simple 2:2 pulldown (24 @ 25) when converting from the original film masters (film runs at 24 frames per second, while PAL runs at 25fps, the new DVDs are in PAL format).
This pulldown was also the cause of audio errors on many episodes, especially for Series 5, as the audio sped up to match the new rate (4% faster), rather than being properly pitch-shifted. Checking the dialogue sheets, which list the feet and frames of the reels, it looks like the speed change is around 5.04%, so there may be some cuts as well - probably from around the commercial breaks and ends of reels, as they amount to about 25 seconds. All my assumptions are based on the episodes having been filmed on standard 35mm film, which has 16 frames per foot and runs at 24 frames per second, so a minute of footage uses 90 feet of film (1,440 frames).
These audio errors have been corrected in the currently available DVDs, but the 2:2 pulldown remains. There is also the addition of a Studio Canal lead-in, converted to black and white to match the episode for Series Four, but colour for Series Five, adding an extra 18 or 19 seconds to the runnning time and making it harder to match timecodes with previous releases. It's annoying that it has been slapped on every single episode, Series 1-3 didn't suffer this indignity.
The previous Contender and A&E DVD releases didn't seem to suffer from these problems, so I assume they either used soft telecine and preserved the original 24fps rate of the film (my preferred option in DVDs) or they used 24 @ 25 pulldown (2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 Euro pull-down). Let's hope the much-rumoured bluray release will revert to native 24fps with soft telecine so we won't have these problems again.